Meaning: “This three-in-one (the triple discipline of dharana, dhyana, and samadhi) practiced at one and the same time is samyama: a ‘holding together,’ ‘integration,’ ‘absorption,’ or ‘blessed deeper expansion.’”

Definition: Samyama is a thorough sustained attention on one subject or object, such that your focus has little or no verbal or visual thought or logical consideration of the subject. Rather, you perceive the object fully in a “gnosis” or knowing of it that is an awareness of just it, in and of itself. And it happens in a flow of consciousness. In the “with seed” form of samyama, an object or subject exists. In “seedless” samyama, only the state of consciousness itself is present.

Many people experience at least a beginning type of samyama when they are focused very intently on a work of creativity or crafting; a job of building, repairing, or taking something apart; an athletic move; or similar activities. They establish a flow with the object or even with the Now, and that delivers them into insight. These involve deep mindfulness beyond logic, with little or no mental thoughts, memories, or reflections. You also may become much more deeply aware of a single object with pure focus solely on it, going ever deeper into its meaning, structure, or location in matter.

Two famous early-1900s Theosophists, for example, Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater, described in their controversial Occult Chemistry how they discovered six new elements through deep meditation. While traditional science discounts their work, several scientists posit that they did indeed "see" subatomic structures no scientist yet had found—certain isotopes and quarks (not elements)—with remarkable mathematical similarity. Similarly, for thousands of years, Eastern mystics have pointed out mathematical numbers for the intervals of the human attention span, brain rhythms, and natural cycles of years that science later has found in some way accurate. All of these are disputed by most scientists; however, the number of relative accuracies of such meditation-discovered "facts" makes some of them difficult to entirely dismiss.

However, samyama can be much simpler than this, too. Often just a few seconds’ or a minute’s sudden flash of insight a whole new way of looking at your subject: for example, a brilliant new idea for a writing, a scientific innovation, or simply a new way of loving your family. Many famous professionals attest to such intuitive flashes, among them Einstein, Tesla, and Steven Jobs.

If your samyama with seed is not an object but rather a subject—a person or being—you may have an increasingly deeper experience of them whether human, angel, or ray of the divine. Sometimes such discoveries can be a burst of discovery, even earthshaking or shattering to your normal ego. At other times, these discoveries can sneak in quietly, a welcome thief in the night to whom you slowly awaken. Either way, they can become doorways through which you enter other realities or new spiritual pathways.

However, if you follow the path of yoga meditation, spiritual practices, or mysticism ever more deeply, then you’ll search for the samyama of deeper awareness, which Patanjali calls nirbija or “seedless” samadhi, thus seedless samyama, as well. Patanjali takes the time to explain both types of samyama. This is why Chapter 3-B exists: it explains the visions and psychic powers one obtains by training your samyama on the world, whether this or the psychic one. But Patanjali’s own recommendation, explained here in Chapter 3-A, is that worldly knowledge and powers are a distraction from the true goal: merging or absorption into the seedless samyama. In Chapter 4, his final one, he explains this in more detail.

Comment: Many people read chapters 3-A and 3-B with the intent of finding a fast way to gain psychic and occult powers. However, this is an idle goal for the great majority of seekers. First, very few people—especially those who want speedy mastery—understand the depth, difficulty, and time—often many years—to develop the three final yoga limbs of dhyana, dharana, and samadhi—let alone are they willing to patiently learn to be living examples of the first five limbs. In addition, most people and even many translations of Chapter 3-B, the “powers” chapter, do not translate these powers correctly sometimes. These translations suggest that advanced yogis can go flying about with their material bodies, convert matter to energy and back again, and hear and see everything and anything they want to at any time.

Some of Chapter 3-B’s powers do exist. They mostly consist, on the one hand, of psychic phenomena as proven by hundreds of scientific studies and tens of thousands of people’s scientifically-collected attestations. Similarly, hundreds of thousands of stories exist of people’s experiences of some of the spiritual states Patanjali lists in Chapter 3-B. According to Patanjali, a samyama meditator can use a “deep focus” to make discoveries in this manner in both material and psychic worlds.

Indeed, many spiritual seekers reach and then stay for awhile on a plateau of this sort after having a deep spiritual awakening or enlightenment of some kind. These seekers are diverted into such powers by desire, curiosity, love of the work, or sheer entrancement. On the psychic side, they begin long explorations of telepathy, mediumship, astral travel, visits to other realms, and far more extreme supernatural powers. On the material side, they become inventors, creative artists, and other innovators. Some find professional work in the medical healing arts, teaching of basic yoga, and other New Age helpers of others. This all is in keeping with how the root word of “-yama” in samyama can mean “expansion.” Samyama is “consciousness expansion”—it takes you into new realms.

Patanjali’s surrounding society had hundreds of thousands who claimed to be meditation masters. Some were real meditators. Many others were short-term yogis seeking little more than the supernatural powers. And thousands were poor fakirs—for-profit pretenders to supernatural powers. In public streets they made cobras sway to their music, learned to lie on beds of sharp nails and walk on fiery embers, and used hidden props of wood beneath long robes so they appeared to be hovering inches above where they sat. They also recounted fantastical feats about their accomplishments in deserts and on mountains they never visited (Puri, India in the Time of Patanjali).*

A village might have one such person, loved, tolerated and given alms, or sometimes chased away. In cities, though, where they could be anonymous, fakirs and supernatural seekers proliferated. Such people have existed everywhere from ancient Babylon to the Jerusalem of Jesus of Nazareth, to the American Wild West’s snake-oil salesmen and our own modern fakers, phishers, and schemers.

Many translators and teachers of the Yoga Sutras do not like—and sometimes will not even teach—the “powers” section of this chapter. Others sternly warn against them. Hariharananda, for example, states that “knowledge of minute or distant objects, is really an impediment to Kaivalya” (liberation) and “does not go by the name of…supreme knowledge” (his Sutra 3.5).

Some commentators believe Patanjali placed these supernatural achievements in the Sutras merely to satisfy his readers, who may have considered this knowledge important. However, there is a simpler explanation. Given all the false knowledge circulating in his era about such powers, he may have wanted to clarify exactly what the real supernatural powers of intermediate and advanced meditation are, warn practitioners about how these experiences may happen to them, and then explain to that for true spiritual development, you must move on to deeper experiences.

Another factor that Patanjali may have been recognizing is that just as doctors and historians existed in his time and served legitimate purposes, so did spiritual healers and other psychics exist who worked legitimately in their own realm of the supernatural. Such people existed, they helped others, and it simply was their job and mission. Samadhi and samyama tend to hasten one closer to whatever work people will perform in their earthly lives, whether healer, teacher, or scientist.

But ultimately, says Patanjali, you need to go beyond even a meaningful discovery of your lifework. When you become completely enmeshed in the material or psychic aspects of everything, you no longer are paying attention to the spiritual. For growth, you instead can look to the higher levels of samadhi through samyama, the Triple Discipline.

Literal translation: “Those three [final limbs] winning = gnosis, deep perception.”

Meaning: “That integration of dharana, dhyana, and samadhi combined, winning it, gives you a wide plain of the light of gnosis in a new world: a radiant intuitive perceiving.”

Definition: This sutra is a general statement about how practicing the three final limbs, combined as samyama, leads to a Knowing that is deeper, higher, and more intimate than what the senses or the normal, rational mind can report of the outward nature of an object. The senses may help in this process, as may some limited logical thinking and memory. But the primary experience in samyama is of going deeper and deeper into the object, stripping away layer after layer of outer reality, and seeing the object (or subject) ever more closely in its true nature, structure, or state of being.

If, for example, you were practicing samyama on a part of your anatomy, you might first experience the layers of skin or organ, then a group of cells, then the cell membranes and protein chains, then the molecules and their chemical interchanges, and, if you wish, the deepest layers of interacting molecules, DNA, and essential energies. This, says Astanga yoga, is how some ancient yogis made discoveries of the inner biology and the outer universe.

Comment: The main body of commenters for more than a thousand years have talked primarily of how this gnosis can be used in the material world to create deeper knowledge of matter, and to give yogis supernatural powers in the psychic or subtle world. However, Patanjali clearly signifies what this ever-deeper knowledge should mean. You should not worry about mere observation of the inner and outer worlds, he says, for they are distractions. Sometimes you will be lead into and through such experiences, which is acceptable if for some reason the purest level of samadhi keeps taking you there. Otherwise, you should keep penetrating the veils of all the worlds and seek the center of samadhi itself.

Modern translations are more likely to point this out. Feuerstein states that in this “utter lucidity the shift from the conscious self to the transcendental Self occurs.”* Hariharananda says that the “light of knowledge” or gnosis described in this sutra should not be “supernormal knowledge of the cosmic world” but rather “the enlightenment attained in Samprajnata-yoga” (spiritual ecstasy).*

Iyengar explains the drive to samadhi as seeing a diamond. One first notices the object itself (dharana), then its inner light (dhyana). But being distracted by neither and continuing to focus on it, a meditator then finds “there is only brightness, no source, no object. When the light is everywhere, that is samadhi”* (Sutra 3.4). “The vision of the seer is equivalent to nirbija [seedless] samadhi.”

It is the ultimate, nondual merging with and absorption into Presence. Then, he says, “the lustre of wisdom and insight shine brilliantly, reconciling the known with the knowable and revealing the soul”* (Sutra 3.5). It is not, explains Iyengar, that samyama cannot be used on physical objects. It is just that the best and purest use of it is for your spiritual development. That is what will guide you to all else.

Meaning: “Samyama, its triple discipline: in graded steps, practice yoking to Presence.”

Definition: Just as with the first five limbs of Astanga, you don’t learn the last three limbs in a day. Practitioners work on all eight limbs for many years, improving and refining them. You start the last three in meditation of some type. As you grow more proficient, you begin applying the three in parts of your daily life, too. You might do so only once or twice a day at first, but as you grow in your abilities, so does the frequency with which you remember to go into these states and achieve samadhi and samyama more often each day.

Another way of translating this sutra’s simple phrase using Sanskrit root words is “That, soil, away-down-into, yoking steps.” In plainer English, this means, “Samyama yokes you, in steps, deeply into the matter of the earth.”

The implication of this in spiritual progress is that samyama not only helps you ascend to greater heights of awareness. It also sends you descending deeper into the world of matter. This is because in general in the inner life, any action causes a reaction. It is a constant of the spiritual life. If you learn to go deeper, you also will find yourself more aware of shallow events, sometimes piercingly so: your newfound sensitivity also makes you more open to the energies in the outer life. And if you go higher, you also will find you become more aware of lower “things”—ordinary or psychic objects and events within and around you—including sometimes more difficult or darker challenges. Again, this is because you are making yourself more sensitive. It is a sign of progress.

To illustrate this ascent and resulting expansion of awareness, imagine the “expanding oval.” Picture your basic, aware sensitivity as an oval around your head and trunk. Inside that oval is where most of your conscious thoughts and feelings occur. If you push upward or outward on the oval spiritually, it doesn’t change its shape. Rather, the entire oval expands. That means you become more aware not only of higher spiritual feelings or wider love, but also of deeper instincts rooted unconsciously in the lower portions of your body, psyche, and/or soul. The formerly unconscious begins to become more conscious. And on the inside margins of your oval, other occasional emotions and desires may become much stronger, more obvious, as your oval of awareness expands well beyond them.

Samyama thus not only can take you to bliss but also to difficult parts of yourself or psychic realities. You then need to resolve them by returning to samyama’s bliss and letting it saturate and dissolve them. In the meantime, you are doing what some would call “exploring.”

It is this “exploring” that needs steps, says Patanjali. To start, you may begin to have more awareness of your own body rhythms, feelings, and needs. This often means it is useful to return to the first five limbs, sometimes even on a daily basis, to see what else you can do to make improvements in your outer life.

Comment: What are the steps? Patanjali lets us figure them out. But some gradually or even suddenly become obvious, once you reach this stage.

As Chapter 3-B—the supernatural powers sutras—clearly states, sometimes your exploring may bring you more awareness of psychic or subtle realities. Science has only begun to touch upon them, but religions have discussed, warned, or sometimes encouraged some of them for thousands of years. Patanjali warns that if you become very caught up in them, they can distract you from true growth. Two kinds of distraction occur. In the first, because these experiences are frightening or painful, you stop samyama so you can sink back into your old existence. Sometimes that even may be helpful as a temporary resting place, but not for long if you want spiritual growth. The second kind of distraction is that you are so entranced by the experiences that you spend ever more time on exploring them instead of looking for more samyama.

Another type of step is, as the previous sutra clearly demonstrates, that your exploring may bring you great new intuitions with leaps of sudden Knowing about subjects or objects. These Knowings can make you much more successful in your professional or personal interests. That success may feel great, but it, too, can be a distraction from samyama itself. You might engage in your new intuitive life so much that you stop working on the Triple Discipline: usually this eventually dams the flow of your intuitive abilities, too. Or if you keep up with your samyama to some extent and your intuitive powers continue, you may be replacing more spiritual growth with your current success. Patanjali recommends more samyama, instead.

Another step, once you’ve established samyama in meditation, is to practice it in ordinary daily life,. Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, famously writes, for example, of using mindfulness when washing the dishes, breathing, and other simple acts.

You can build reminders into your life, from artwork you often will see to rubber bands on your wrist or to a timer signaling you. You are welcome to use other religions’ spiritual practices, too, says Patanjali in Sutra 1.39. The experiencing of the Triple Discipline and its three limbs are the same, no matter how they are named. Mindful observation, moksha, nirvana, Centering Prayer, devotion to Shiva/Shakti/the Great Mother Goddess, prayer to a holy figure—all are opportunities for practicing samyama.

It is noteworthy that an ancient founding father of Western philosophy, Plato, had a similar belief. He declared in his famous Republic that the deeper your mind searches the pre-matter spirit “Forms,” as he calls them, along with their underlying basic essence, the closer you will get to the mystic source of life. “The soul,” he tells us, “becomes divine by contemplating the Forms.”*

Literal translation: “The Triple, inner stirring; unlike those (limbs) before”

Meaning: “The Triple Discipline limbs are an internal part or aspect; the first five were external.”

A chant in English: “In the eight limbs of yoga, look inside for the last three.”

Definition: This sutra clarifies the difference between the first five limbs of Astanga, which are in and for the external world of the material five senses. However, these last three Triple Discipline limbs, are in and for the interior life.

Comment: The final three limbs deal with consciousness or internal awareness. As modern neuroscientists point out, such awareness occurs not just in the brain but also, to some extent, in the spinal nerves and other parts of the body. Thus the Triple Discipline is not just a brain function but also an activity in parts of the lower body.

This becomes even more true as you perform samyama on your own body, gradually gaining more sensory awareness and even, sometimes, control, in parts of the semiautonomous and autonomous systems. An example of this is yogis who are able to slow or speed their heartbeat at will. And deeper levels of samadhi lead to more relaxed states of body functions as governed by the parasympathetic nervous system—or higher-burning energy states as needed sometimes for endurance, body heat, and other fuel-burning functions.

Literal translation: “The Triple, even, external-limbed—regarding no-seed”

Meaning: “The Triple Discipline, samyama, actually is an external limb compared to the ultimate state: nirbija or ‘seedless’ samadhi.”

Definition: This is the first time in the Astanga yoga sutras that nirbija samadhi is mentioned. Elsewhere in the Yoga Sutras, the only mention of it is in Sutras 1.46 and 1.51. Here, once again, Patanjali establishes that there are two primary types of samadhi. One is “with seed” (sabija samadhi) and the other “without seed” (nirbija samadhi). He speaks of other kinds or shades of samadhi, too. However, this pair, with seed and seedless, are the main two divisions of the different types of samadhi.

“Seedless” samadhi means a state in which your awareness is so clear that you do not even have the smallest seeds or beginning sprouts of thinking in your mind: no thought or self-talk, no memories, no emotions, and no desires. They are not even in the sidelines, waiting to enter, for they are completely burned away by this samadhi, as long as you are in it.

You experience a full blaze of awareness without even the thought of how you got there—that is, you have no memory or thought of the Triple Discipline or any discipline or yogic method. You simply are profoundly conscious without a trace of thought, memory, emotion, or desire.

You likely will appear to others to be lost in a trance state or so deeply abstracted that you don’t know what is happening around you. And you don’t. You sometimes can be startled out of it, by a loud noise, for example. But otherwise, your senses are not working, as they are cancelled out or short-circuited by the empty fullness of what you are experiencing.

Comment: Seedless samadhi is what the Western mystics call the nondual mystic experience of the ultimate Presence. It is Hinduism’s Satchidananda: Sat, or Peace (Peace that Passes Understanding); Chid/Chit, or Consciousness-Will/Strength; and Ananda, or Love/Joy/Bliss. Whether you experience it the first time for ten seconds, ten minutes, or ten hours, it means the end of any last remaining belief in your ego. You may retain something of an ego structure and use it after that. But you will know that the existence of an ego—one that considers itself a real, separate, and controlling entity—really is just a dream, fantasy, or illusion. You realize it only is a structure you’ve adopted and built since birth, not your true root and self.

The perfect clarity of seedless samadhi is the same as what Mahayana Buddhism calls the fuller versions of nirvana that occur in one’s earthly life. For more details about this, see “Appendix D: What Is Nirvana?”

The Lakshmi Tantra says of states such as nirbija samadhi, “Brahman—the universal aspect of God—is Naranya, the name of the single, void, pure and flawless, devoid of disturbance, undefined, without movement or sound, integral, changeless…. God is unalloyed bliss without a trace of illusion, pure, absolute, and concentrated awareness…, the divine and ultimate goal of the Spiritual way. [It is] both Energy and the Feminine Aspect of God that possesses the Energy. That absolute universal God…is…the ‘I’ in all beings.”*

Iyengar calls seedless samadhi “the direct vision of the soul” in which “the soul (atman) shines forth…. The soul surfaces of its own accord.” In this sense of “soul,” your True Self or spark of the Divine is seeing and sensing with an intense, silent purity of empty fullness: the Nothing (NoThing) of Buddhism and the AllThings of the nondual mystical experience.

Sanskrit Text: Patanjali, c. 400 BCE-400 CE

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